Editing Free Territory of Trieste (section)

== Demographics ==
During the late 1940s and in the years following the division of the territory, up to 40,000 people<ref>{{cite book |last1=Petacco |first1=Arrigo |title=The Exodus. The Story of the Italian Population of Istria, Dalmatia, and Venezia Giulia |date=1999 |publisher=Mondadori |location=Milan}}</ref> (mostly Italians) chose to leave the Yugoslav Zone B and move to the Italian Zone A for various reasons: some were intimidated into leaving, and some simply preferred not to live in Yugoslavia. Within Yugoslavia, the people who left were referred to as ''{{lang|it|optanti}}'' 'choosers', whereas they called themselves ''{{lang|it|esuli}}'' 'exiles'. About 14,000 Italians chose to remain in the Yugoslav zone. The population of the Free Territory of Trieste was approximately 370,000 in 1949.